Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Things looked bleak until last night. Only Luke Fischer broke into the top 25 of Big East players through Sunday's www.valueaddbasketball.com calculation on Sunday. But Monday's stunning upset of #22 LSU was a major breakthrough for the third least experienced team in the country and the Big East Conference.

Ken Pomeroy ranks Villanova, Xavier, Butler and Georgetown easily in the NCAA field, but .. that is based on Georgetown's near upsets of both Duke and Maryland so the 1-3 Hoyas need wins. Butler is one of only seven team to have three players in Pomeroy's top 100 in Offensive Efficiency and Andrew Chrabascz is the most valuable player in the conference at www.valueaddbasketball.com based on being among the national leaders in shooting, offensive rebounding, steals and protecting the ball on offense.

While the ACC and Big 12 rank well ahead of everyone else, Pomeroy has the four other major conferences - the Big East, SEC, Big Ten and Pac-12 - in a virtual four-way tie as the third best conference. Therefore MU's upset of LSU and Seton Halls win over Mississippi were big wins looking ahead to bids vs. the SEC, and the Big East's ability to go 5-4 against the Big Ten last week also helps. A win tonight for Marquette over Arizona State could give the Big East good bragging rights against the other three if MU, Seton Hall, Providence or Creighton end up on the bubble.

Putting out a ranking based on around three games each is admittedly way to small a sample size, but nonetheless, the database at www.valueaddbasketball.com reflects all 4000 players through Sunday's games, and I also wanted to post one at the benchmark/low point from the 1-2 start to remember how far MU will have come if last night leads to a turnaround.